Skip to main content

Haunted Finances

 It’s here, the fourth quarter of the year! As an entrepreneur (one of my personas is an online retailer), I LOVE the last 3 months of the calendar; it usually means a bonus for my business because people spent a lot more than they usually do. Now, that is fine if you have budgeted for it, but a lot of people spend so much that it can be scary. There are lots of ways to cut costs and still have a great Merry Thanksgivoween. 

Take All Hallows Eve, for instance. (We will start with the October events since they come first, ha ha.) There are things you can do to not break the bank. Do you have old costumes that don’t fit your children any longer? Stuff them and use them to decorate your yard, cut up the cool material to accent old home décor or make new pieces, or initiate a costume swap with friends (adhering to Covid regulations, of course).

Speaking of the ghastly virus, there are lots of traditions that your family probably participated in last year that the coronavirus has rendered obsolete, at least for now. But necessity is the mother of invention, and there are NEW rituals being raised from the ashes of what used to be. Check out last week’s post about virtual Discovery Hunts. Check your My Discovery Destination! local Facebook group's Halloween thread to see what is happening in spite of the "new normal." Or put Google to use and see what “drive by” Halloween events might be taking place in your area.

And if you have been following my advice for a while, you probably have some of this year’s Easter candy in your freezer that you can hand out to any trick or treaters that brave the pandemic. It’s time to pull that out. 😊

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One More–Christmas Experiences Part II

Christmas is just a week away. Hopefully you’ve checked everything off your to-do list and can spend some quality time “experiencing” Christmas gifts with your family. Because, after all, your loved ones will be far more touched by how you made them feel than they will be with what you gave them. This week, I want to share with you my sister, Carey’s, family Christmas experience. “One Christmas, when my boys, now 18, 23 and 28, were little, we gave them an experience that is still talked about now. And it’s something so easily replicated that any family can do it, and it’s not too late to do it for Christmas (even ON Christmas) this year. We drove around our neighborhood and looked at all the homes decorated for the holiday. We took note of the addresses as we numbered them. We talked about what made each ornamented yards stand out. And at the end of the night, we voted for our favorite. I had my sons help me make some of our favorite holiday desserts and, in addition to taking p...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Marshmallow Experiment

In 1972, Stanford did a study about delayed gratification with children. It involved giant marshmallows and testing their patience.  You can see a short YouTube video about the study here . Basically, the kids who could sit alone with a giant marshmallow without eating it for a certain length of time were rewarded with a second giant marshmallow. Fun, huh? Some kids could be patient and reap the rewards; some could not. I was a small child when the study was conducted, and I wonder which side I might have been on. I HAVE learned to be pretty patient as an adult. One of the areas in which I’ve seen improvement is in finances. I have become a good money manager–I could be paid once annually and budget so that I won’t run out before year’s end, including having enough money to pay my own quarterly taxes–self-employed people do that. Speaking of taxes, I try not to overpay so that I qualify for a “refund,” because the government does not practice The Marshmallow Experiment. Huh? ...
Post a Comment
Read more

More Financial Help

As part of the Discovery Family Coalition, we work with many agencies whose purposes are to help families in a myriad of areas. One of those areas is finances (that I get to chat with you about every week–yay!). And right now, families need all the financial help they can get, mine included. One of our fellow coalition partners, the Utah Department of Health & Human Services Child & Family Services, also does what it can to get help, including financial help, to families who need it. I happen to be on an email list, and this week I got an email with this information: “The Connect toCollect(C2C) program is focused on increasing low-income Utahans' receipt of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by educating individuals about this federal program and linking them to high quality, free tax preparation." What is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)? It's a tax credit that  helps low- to moderate-income workers and families get a tax break. If you qualify, you can us...
Post a Comment
Read more